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Texting while driving?

Don't let this happen to you!

The Safe Texting Campaign's mission is to reduce/stop distracted driving through education and technology. Sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers – so many have been lost, injured or forever devastated by accidents resulting from texting and cell phone use while driving. Together we can stop this worldwide distracted driving crisis and stop it today!

Active No Text screens shown on Android and BlackBerry versions of the Application

Teen drivers

Research shows that teen drivers, ages 16-19, are easily distracted and take more unnecessary risks than mature experienced drivers. Teenage overconfidence encourages reckless activities including speeding, lane cross-overs, red light running and tailgating when driving solo or with their peers. This means teenage drivers are dangerous enough without adding a cell phone and texting into the equation. Teens are four times more likely to get into a car accident while talking or texting. Our application will helps to reduce the behavior through education and technology, and texting while driving.

Follow @safe_texting

The problem goes beyond teens

The SafeTexting Campaign hands out distracted driving literature at community events. We recently participated in the Ocoee FL, Founders Day Festival. I handed literature to a young man, he had his wife and two children with him. We talked about Safe Texting, "I'm sure you don't text and drive, but I am sure you know someone who dose..." After they walked away, his son (about age 10) ran back to me and said "Thanks for giving that to my dad, he really needs to know it's bad to text and drive".

The founders of the SafeTexting Campaign are parents who are alarmed with the impact cell phone usage while driving is having on our society. We're concerned about distracted driving, safety, security and preserving parental rights. No parent should outlive their child or receive a devastating phone call over something as pointless as an irresponsible text message. SafeTexting Campaign reduces texting and driving which gives a us peace of mind and allows teenagers to safely continue enjoying their growing independence. We must set the standard for safe positive behavior and we must stop texting and driving. Demands on our time can result in a challenging balance, but safety must never be sacrificed. Stop the madness, get the application for your phone. Set an example and to show others that safety is always a high priority, do not text and drive.

How does the Safe Texting application work?

SafeTexting R

iPhone Download
SafeTexting R for iPhone, uses cell tower change technology. When you are driving the application displays a "Please Don't Text and Drive" message.
Sign the SafeTexing Pledge from the iPhone app. We encourage you to invite your friends and family to sign the pledge from your phone.
Also includes a Crash Gallery, Caught You Texting and Safety Events galleries. From the app upload pictures or send pictures directly from your phone's camera to the galleries. (Do Not capture "Caught You Texing" photos while you are driving. Give the phone to a passenger)

SafeTexting AR +

Android, BlackBerry and BlackBerry 10 Downloads
SafeTexting AR+ uses GPS technology to reduce distracted driving. When you’re driving at speeds above fifteen miles per hour, the application replies to inbound SMS messages, letting the sender know you are driving and it may be a while before you respond to their text message.
Sign the SafeTexing Pledge from the app. We encourage you to invite your friends and family to sign the pledge as often as you like.
AR+ also includes a Crash Gallery, Caught You Texting and Safety Events galleries. From the app upload pictures or send pictures directly from your phone's camera to the galleries. (Do Not capture "Caught You Texing" photos while you are driving. Give the phone to a passenger)

Distracted driving facts

The No. 1 source of driver inattention is use of a wireless device (Virginia Tech/NHTSA)
Drivers that use cell phones are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves (NHTSA, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety)
Distraction from cell phone use while driving (hand held or hands free) extends a driver’s reaction as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent (University of Utah)
10% of drivers aged 16 to 24 years old are on their phone at any one time
Driving while distracted is a factor in 25% of police reported crashes and cost society about $230 billion a year
Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37%
Of all cell phone related tasks - including talking, dialing, or reaching for the phone - texting while driving is the most dangerous.
A car driver dialing a cell phone is 2.8 times more likely to get into a crash than a non-distracted driver. (Virginia Tech)
A driver reaching for a cell phone or any other electronic device is 1.4 times more likely to experience a car crash.
A car driver talking on their phone is 1.3 times more likely to get into an accident.
For every 6 seconds of drive time, a driver sending or receiving a text message spends 4.6 of those seconds with their eyes off the road. This makes texting the most distracting of all cell phone related tasks. (Virginia Tech)

Cell phone usage while driving is far too common and very dangerous. Some state and local government agencies have made the use of a cell phone while driving illegal. In some areas restrictions are directed to minors and new license holders. Other jurisdictions have enacted laws to ban handheld use, but allow the usage of a hands free devices.

Text messaging alone caused more than 16,000 deaths in car accidents from 2001 to 2007. According to new U.S. government research, deaths related to cell phones and texting while driving rose 28 percent in just three years, from 4,572 in 2005 to 5,870 in 2008

A 2003 study by the psychology department at the University of Utah measured response time, following distance, and driving speed of a control group, subjects at the legal blood alcohol level of 0.08%, and subjects involved in cell phone conversations. “After controlling for driving difficulty and time on task, the study concluded that cell phone drivers exhibited greater impairment than intoxicated drivers”

Twenty to fifty percent of all reported accidents are related to driver inattention. Driver distraction is a sub-category of inattention, which is estimated to be a contributing factor in eight to thirteen percent of all crashes.

Many states have banned texting on cell phones while driving. Illinois was the 17th state to enforce the ban. Accidents involving drivers being distracted by talking on a cell phone have begun to be prosecuted as negligence similar to driving while intoxicated. In some jurisdictions law enforcement agencies are routinely requesting cell phone records for all injury related traffic accidents.

It is unclear how effective texting while driving laws are. While the laws have the best intention, they may inadvertently promote a very dangerous behavior. Some drivers who previously held their cell phone near the top of the steering wheel while texting, are now holding the cell phone in their lap. While these drivers hide the phone from law enforcement, they are setting themselves up for disaster. Now they are taking their eyes completely off the road for up to 6 seconds at a time. Prior to the new laws, they may have had some benefit from peripheral vision.

Contrary to popular belief hands free cellular devices are not safer than using a hand held cell phones. The cognitive workload involved in holding a conversation, not the use of hands, causes the increased risk. “Verbal acquisition tasks were innocuous compared with production tasks, and complex conversations, whether by phone or with a passenger, are dangerous for road safety.” Source

We encourage you to sign the Safe Texting Campaign pledge and get the app to help you change the behavior. We would love to hear your comments please sign our Guest Book your feedback is greatly appreciated. For support or information on corporate sales please see our Contact Us page. For commonly asked questions check out SafeTexting Campaign FAQ page. If you have the SafeTexting application and you have forgotten your password please go to our Password Recovery page. If you have a Safety or Distracted Driving related website please submit your texting while driving related link to our Link Exchange. MEDIA please see our Press Release page.

Sign the Pledge - Get the Safe Texting app

Having a Safety Event

Free Downloads
SafeTexting Sign Artwork
SafeTexting Handout

Pledge

The SafeTexting Pledge creates a printable pledge certificate after its signed. Feel free to use the SafeTexting Pledge for your safety event.

Purchase
Stickers, Signs & Stuff

Sponsors

Texting Thumb Bands help promote the message of text free driving and show your commitment to being a text free driver. Click here for more info on Thumb Bands

Distracted Driving Statistics

Ray LaHood

US Secretary of Transportation

A texting driver is 20 times more likely than an attentive driver to make a critical driving error.
Studies show that when a driver looks away from the road to text or email, he/she is not focused on the road for 4.6 seconds. At 55 MPH that is like driving the length of a football field while blindfolded.

Distraction.gov

2008 Report

21% of 1,630,000 injury crashes involved distracted drivers
16% of total fatalities were from crashes involving distracted driving (equals 5,870 people killed, another 515,000 injured. Under 20 age group had the highest number of distracted drivers in
fatal crashes (16%). The 20-29 group was next with 12%.

GHSA.org

7 states, D.C. and the US Virgin Islands have hand-held cell phone bans.
28 states, D.C. and Guam have banned texting while driving for all drivers and 9 other states target inexperienced drivers.
March 2009 New Jersey officers wrote 14,464 citations for cell phone / texting usage statewide. Since March 2008, 224,000 and counting have been issued. That amounts to about 10,000 citations a month.

University of Utah

Using a cell phone while driving, whether it's hand-held or hands-free, delays a driver's reactions as much as having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent.

Virginia Tech/NHTSA

The No. 1 source of driver inattention is use of a wireless device.

NHTSA, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

Drivers that use cell phones are four times as likely to get into crashes serious enough to injure themselves.
10 percent of drivers age 16 to 24 years old are on their phone at any one time.
Driving while distracted is a factor in 25 percent of police reported crashes.

Carnegie Mellon

Driving while using a cell phone reduces the amount of brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent.